


Reach Down, Pull Me Up

by DachOsmin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Interrogation, Organized Crime, Pre-Slash, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 13:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11014692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: Nico is a cop who gets himself caught by a mob boss. Which would all be bad enough, even if said mob boss' right hand man didn't also happen to be Nico's brother.





	Reach Down, Pull Me Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueteak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/gifts).



Nico wakes to a dark hallway sliding by on either side of him, and pain. The former is new; the latter is by now an old friend. He tries to shake the sleep from his eyes, though it’s hard to do with his hands tied behind his back- zip locks, he thinks.

The one he’s taken to calling Weasel and Ratface are dragging him between them. They’re talking about sports, some girl Ratface likes. Just normal stuff. As if they haven’t spent the last several hours beating the living shit out of Nico.

They reach the end of the hallway. Weasel pauses at a door, nudging it open with his hip. The door opens to a warehouse and it’s some type of daytime outside; Nico can make out cracks of light filtering through the boards on the windows. He knows he should try to listen for traffic or look for clues as to where the hell he is, but he can’t, can’t do anything but stare at the plastic tarp spread out in the middle of the floor.

The tarp. That’s- yeah. They hadn’t used one the day before, when they’d all had a bit of a go around with their pliers and their butterfly knives, the sick fucks. Had it only been a day ago? It feels like a lifetime ago. But he supposes that shouldn’t surprise him; pain has a funny way of stretching seconds into minutes and hours and lifetimes. God knows it had felt like an eternity when they’d ripped the first fingernail out. He hadn’t been quite conscious enough to notice it with the second one.

“You all right there, copper boy?” Ratface asks, jerking on his arm as they drag him through a puddle of fetid water. “You seem real quiet.”

He can hear the grin in Weasel’s voice without looking up. “Don’t think he likes the decor.”

He’s not wrong. The tarp pulls his eyes and holds them, no matter how much he tries to look away. He’d known, intellectually. You don’t fuck with a cop like this and let them walk away from it. But he’d liked to think that maybe things would work out, maybe the fine men of the 47th\- or a SWAT team, for that matter, a SWAT team would be _great_ \- would burst in with tactical vests on and safeties off, and he’d get to wake up in the hospital with a giant bouquet and eighty ranting voice mails from his boss on his phone. Or even if the cops couldn’t find him, maybe Gianni would. Maybe- but no, Gianni had made himself quite clear the last time they’d spoken. Gianni isn’t coming. No one is.

All of his paper-thin fantasies of rescue have crumbled, and the debris is a heavy weight in his stomach.

He doesn’t protest as the goons drag him onto the tarp, lets them manhandle him into a kneeling position. Weasel shoves him hard on the shoulder and he bites back a cry as his knees buckle beneath him. He goes sprawling, and each cut and bruise screams in protest.

 The plastic crinkles against his cheek; beneath it the cement is hard and cold. In the distance he can hear water dripping from the roof, echoing off the corrugated siding of the walls. It’s quiet. Peaceful.

He closes his eyes, lets out a shuddered breath, and accepts he’s going to die. At which point things promptly get worse.

~~~

The door on the far side of the warehouse swings open with a jarring clang. Rescue? But no, Weasel and Ratface are standing at ease next to him, and Ratface sketches a cheery wave as a group of men in suits stroll through the doors, chatting among themselves in low tones.

“Afternoon, boss!” Weasel calls out.

The man at the head of the group nods absentmindedly back at him, a cigar dangling from his fingers. Vincent Taranto, it has to be. This is his territory after all. It was his warehouse Nico had been poking through when he’d gotten clocked on the back of the head. Nico’s only ever seen him in grainy photographs, but this man fits the bill: six foot something with a taste for bespoke tailoring. The charcoal suit he’s wearing looks like it cost a fortune; hell, the red silk pocket square could probably pay for a month of Nico’s rent. Maybe when Nico gets shot the blood will end up ruining Vincent’s suit. That’d show him.

Probably-Vincent’s got a gaggle of goons trailing after him like ducklings; they’re basically footnotes. Just another handful of tough guys with a taste for cheap suits and too much hair gel.

But. The last man.

Time slows. Nico’s stomach drops, his heartbeat hammers against the inside of his veins. Fuck. There’s blood dripping into his eyes from a cut on his forehead, but even half-blind he’d know that face anywhere.

Nico hasn’t seen him since that night in Boston, five years ago. A lifetime ago.

 _“Leave your keys on the table. Don’t come back.”_ He can almost hear the words in his head. Gianni had been calm; he’d spoken like a stranger to a stranger. Like they weren’t brothers anymore.

Nico is helpless; he can’t tear his eyes away.

People used to call them twins growing up; Gianni, four years older and working on a patchy mustache, had hated it like nothing else. But he needn’t have worried. Nowadays they look nothing alike.

The time has been good to him; he’s pushing thirty and doesn’t have a wrinkle on his face. He probably eats that kale shit; hell, he can probably afford to eat at Whole Foods with all that stolen money of his. Gianni used to bully Nico into eating healthy when they were teenagers. Joke’s on him, since Nico’s been subsisting on hamburgers and the occasional taco ever since he got his own place. Somehow the victory feels hollow.

Gianni hasn’t seen him yet; he’s absorbed in small-talk with the goons. But then he turns his head towards the tarp, and Nico can see the moment he notices. His hand stutters in the middle of a gesture. His eyes widen, blink once. One second, and then it’s all gone again, and he’s turning away, back to whatever he was saying before.

It hurts more than he would’ve expected it to. Even after the fight, he’d harbored some hope that Gianni cared. And during these last few treacherous hours he’d nursed himself on the fantasy of it: Gianni coming back, snapping the goons’ necks, cradling him in his arms with soft sweet words and promises that he’d never leave again. Just normal brother stuff. But it looks like that isn’t going to happen. Nico read once that people replace all their cells after seven years- maybe he should have expected that Gianni would be a stranger to him now. Still, there’s a perverse sort of comfort to Gianni as an impassive witness: at least he isn’t going to die alone.

Vincent walks closer, until he’s standing in front of Nico, staring down at him through the haze of the cigar smoke. “This the cop, then?” He tsks, takes another puff of the cigar. “Damn shame. Looks like you had a nice talk with him.”

“We did, sir.” Ratface kicks him in the ribs and sets off a starburst of pain. Nico bites back a scream as the movement tips him off balance and sends him sprawling back onto his side. The impact lights up all the hurts he’d managed to ignore; it’s all he can do to blink up at the lights on the ceiling as pain washes over him in a dizzying wave. In the distance, someone makes a strangled sound.

Through the haze of the pain he can make out Vincent’s eyes narrowing in thought. “But he didn’t have anything to say, even with all that.”

Weasel sighs. “No sir, nothing important. Just the usual. Kept on screaming for his brother to come save him. If there’s nothing else...”

Vincent stares down at him for a moment more, then shrugs. “Yeah. You know what to do.”

Gianni appears in Vincent’s shadow. His face is a study in calm. “Dead cops aren’t good for business.”

Vincent chuckles and swings an arm around Gianni’s shoulder, pulling him closer with a conspiratorial wink. “Dead? He looks perfectly alive to me. And he’ll stay that way until we leave the room. And if you get pulled down to the station and they say ‘hey, seen any dead cops lately?’ You can speak god’s own truth and say ‘no, sir, not a one.’” He takes a drag of his cigarette. “Wouldn’t want to lie, after all. Lying is bad for the soul.”

Nico might be imagining it, but he thinks he can see Gianni’s nose wrinkle at the smell of the smoke. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He makes a thoughtful noise. “Still, seems like a bit of a waste.”

Vincent shrugs. “Not much else we can do with him. If you have any ideas I’m all ears.”

A loaded pause. And then there are footsteps, first echoed off the cement and then crinkling on the tarp.

He can’t bring himself to look up, because he knows if he does it won’t be Gianni. It’ll be one of the others, one with a knife or a gun and he’ll have to die knowing that Gianni chose to stand aside and let it happen.

Above him, a voice. “I want him.”

“Dare I ask why?” Vincent says.

“I like the way he looks on his knees.” Cool fingers on his forehead. One slips down his cheek, cleaving through the tear tracks and slipping under his chin. When had he started crying?

“And I was beginning to think you were a monk.” Vincent chuckles. “Hell, go ahead. If he gets away you’re paying for it, though.”

“He won’t get away.” Gianni forces Nico’s chin up and suddenly their gazes are locked. Nico tries to jerk his head away but Gianni holds him fast, and there’s nothing Nico can do but look him in the eye. God, but Nico could drown in those eyes. They’d been so angry, before. It’s too much and not enough and he can’t face this, not now. Nico wrenches his head to the side and this time, Gianni lets him go.

Behind him, Weasel clucks in mock concern. “Got to respect your new boss, kid.” He nudges at Nico’s ass with the toe of his boot. “Want us to break him in for you?”

“No thanks,” Gianni says. His voice is dry enough to parch. “I don’t want your sloppy seconds. And he’s plenty docile already.” His voice changes, pitching low and heady. “Aren’t you, little one?”

A whimper escapes Nico’s mouth. Words are beyond him at this point.

Gianni extends his other hand, palm down. There’s a thin ring on his third finger, stone up.

Nico sways forward into the touch, presses a dry mouthed kiss to the stone of the ring. It’s cold beneath his lips.

Gianni nods like his mind is made up. “I’ll be going then,” he says with a slight bow to Vincent. And then he’s turning to leave with a clipped wave of his hand for Nico to follow.

Nico is seized with the terrible fear the Gianni is going to leave him behind. He struggles to get to his feet, but panic makes him awkward and frenzied in his motions, like a trapped animal. His ankle buckles beneath him and he twists off balance; his hands, still trapped behind his back, can do nothing to stop his fall. He scrunches his eyes shut and prepares for the pain of impact.

Gianni catches him in steady hands. “Calm, little one,” he says, and Nico can only blink dumbly through his tears.

Strong arms are hoisting him aloft, cradling him against a warm chest. As Gianni walks, the rhythm rocks him to sleep, but not before noticing that Gianni’s heartbeat is hammering in every place their skin touches, and his knuckles are white. "I've got you," he whispers. "And I'm never going to leave you again."


End file.
